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Day 20 - August 8

Today ends week 3 of the great adventure!  A Mostly beautiful ride took me up through the Keweenaw Peninsula along the western shore to the most northern point in Michigan. Although it doesn't have the same elevation, it is every bit as picturesque as the Canadian shore. The roads are quiet and the hills are manageable. Michigan Wins Again!!!!

But indulge a little backtracking to last evening. Roy drove into my campsite on a Harley and wanted to know where I've been and where I'm going. He was really interested in my travels, but honestly, his story is way more fascinating than mine. Roy lives in Illinois, just outside of St. Louis. He retired, sold his house, put his belongings into storage and is looking for a house in the Keweenaw Peninsula. He intends to go off the grid and stay off. I didn't want to intrude so I didn't ask why and he didn't offer an explanation. So you might think that Roy is a Michigan Militia Trump white supremacist but I didn't get that vibe. He was an engaging, soft spoken and thoughtful guy that just seems to want to escape.

The shoreline in this part of Superior faces directly north with Canada unseen about 180 miles away. It is also the only place to find a faint cell signal. Getting ready to retire I make my way to a bluff overlooking the lake to make a goodnight call to Nina and watch the sunset. There are aderondack chairs arranged in twos along the bluff and I am invited to take a seat next to what appears to be an artist. In fact, he is writing in a journal, not drawing.

My sunset mate is a novelist from Petoskey, Michigan and is in self imposed exile on a kayak trip around Superior.  His only modern convenience is a flip phone (if you call that modern) to assure his wife that he is unharmed each day. His trip total is 1,000 miles which, when you consider the mode  of transportation, puts my adventure in its place. Our novelist writes under the pseudonym of Stewert James. He seems reluctant to share his real personal details so I won't divulge them here but we hit it off and he eventually confides his real name, address and other particulars. We agree to meet later this year in Petoskey, for dinner, with our spouses and share war stories. He is a wine steward at a local restaurant so I know that he and Nina will click. He is also separated by just two degrees from us through the restaurant owner that he works for and their close friends in Detroit who are fun friends of ours.

You just can't make this stuff up.

The sunset was phenomenal.

Today's mileage 52 for a total of 1,074.

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